Common Sense, How To Exercise It | Page 7

the pity of the conqueror; for their defeat lacks grandeur, since it has never been aurioled by the majestic strength of conflict."
Following this, the Shogun speaks to us of those whom he calls the ardent seekers after illusion.
One evening he related the following story: "Some men started off for an island, which they perceived in the distance.
"It looked like a large, detached red spot, amid the flaming rays of the setting sun, and the men told of a thousand wonders about this unknown land, as yet untrodden by the foot of man.
"The first days of the journey were delightful. The oars lay in the bottom of the boat untouched, and they just allowed themselves to drift with the tide. They disembarked, singing to the murmur of the waters, and gathered the fruits growing on the shores, to appease their hunger.
"But the stream, which was bearing them onward, did not retain long its limpidity and repose; the eddies soon entrapped the tiny bark and dragged the men overboard.
"Some, looking backward, were frightened at the thought of ascending the river, which had become so tempestuous.
"Escaping the wreckage of the boat as best they could, they entrusted themselves again to the fury of the waters.
"They had to suffer from cold and hunger, for they were far from shore, and as, in their imagination, the island was very near, they had neglected to furnish themselves with the necessities of life.
"At last, after the fatigues which forethought would have prevented, they found themselves one evening, at sundown, at the base of a great rock, bathed in the rosy light of the departing sun.
"This, then, was the island of their dreams.
"Tired out and exhausted from lack of food, they had only the strength to lie down upon the inhospitable rock, there to die!
"The disappearance of the illusion, having destroyed their courage and having struck them with the sword of despair, the rock of reality had proved destructive of their bodies and souls.
"The moral of this story easily unfolds itself.
"If the seekers after illusions had admitted common sense to their deliberations, they would certainly have learned to know the nature of the enchanted isle, and they would have taken good care not to start out on their journey which must terminate by such a deception.
"Would they not have taken the necessary precaution to prevent all the delays attendant upon travels of adventure, and would they have entrusted their lives to so frail a skiff, if they had acquired common sense?"
We must conclude, with Yoritomo, that illusion could often be transformed into happy reality if it were better understood, and if, instead of looking upon it through the dreams of our imagination, we applied ourselves to the task of eliminating the fluid vapors which envelop it, that we might clothe it anew with the garment of common sense.
Many enterprises have been considered as illusions because we have neglected to awaken the possibilities which lay dormant within them.
The initial thought, extravagant as it may appear, brings with it, at times, facilities of realization that a judgment dictated by common sense can alone make us appreciate.
He who knows how to keep a strict watch over himself will be able to escape the causes of disillusion, which lead us through fatal paths of error, to the brink of despair.
"That which is above all to be shunned," said the philosopher, "is the encroachment of discouragement, the result of repeated failures.
"Rare are those who wish to admit their mistakes.
"In the structure of the mind, inaccuracy brings a partial deviation from the truth, and it does not take long for this slight error to generalize itself, if not corrected by its natural reformer--common sense.
"But how many, among those who suffer from these unhappy illusions, are apt to recognize them as such?
"It would, however, be a precious thing for us to admit the causes which have led us to such a sorry result, by never permitting them to occur again.
"This would be the only way for the victims of illusion to preserve the life of that element of success and happiness known as hope.
"Because of seeing so often the good destroyed, we wish to believe no more in it as inherent in our being, and rather than suffer repeatedly from its disappearance, we prefer to smother it before perfect development.
"The greater number of skeptics are only the unavowed lovers of illusion; their desires, never being those capable of realization, they have lost the habit of hoping for a favorable termination of any sentiment.
"The lack of common sense does not allow them to understand the folly of their enterprise, and rather than seek the causes of their habitual failures, they prefer to attack God and man, both of whom they hold responsible for all their unhappiness.
"They are willingly ironical, easily become pessimists, and villify life, without